Be Better Member of the week: Jeri

Daughter, Dog Lover, Be Better Movement Intern

I am 22 years old, and I live in Hacienda Heights, California

Why did you decide to do the #bebetter52 challenge?

I'm a student from Chapman University and came across Be Better Movement on Chapman’s Career Development website, then applied to be an intern. I looked into the company to see what they were all about and found the cause very interesting and wanted to become more involved. When I spoke to Aly, she told me how to join the challenge and I really liked the idea.

What do you like about the Be Better Movement?

I like that this company aims to help make people better physically and mentally with the challenges. At the same time, they help on such a large scale by contributing to different charities and helping those charities to become more widely known.

How do you feel like the challenge has made an impact in your life?

I’ve told Aly that I was never really into fitness or even conscious of my mental well-being, for that matter. Since I started doing these challenges, I’ve become more aware of things, like drinking more water and herbal tea, eating mindfully, and using substitutes for dairy, just to name a few
. In addition, these challenges aren’t that difficult to do and since I’m on social media quite often, it doesn’t take me that long to post about these challenges and to encourage other people to do them.

What is your favorite challenge thus far?

I’ve had two favorite challenges so far. One of my favorites was to drink more water, which I mentioned. I liked that challenge because I never really noticed how rarely I drink water prior to doing that challenge. I found a recipe online for how to make my water taste more refreshing by infusing it with fruit. Not only is this healthier than drinking soda or the concentrated juices I usually drink, it made my water taste really good!

The other challenge I enjoyed was the Pay It Forward challenge. I don’t consider myself a really generous person, but I do go to Starbucks a lot. It was nice to pay for someone else’s drink for once rather than only thinking about myself.

What has been the hardest challenge so far?

If I’m being honest, I haven’t posted a lot of the challenges to social media because I’ve found them hard to do. I only just started doing these challenges in February, when I began interning with Be Better Movement. One of the challenges I found difficult was the ginger challenge. Generally, my mom cooks with ginger anyway, but I’ve never liked the taste so I just pick it out of my food. I know the point of these challenges is to improve your health, but I just couldn’t get used to the taste of ginger for the challenge.

Do you have any suggestions for future challenges? If so, what? If not, how can we improve challenges that already exist?

I think all the challenges have been great. I don’t have anything bad to say about the challenges themselves but I think it would be great to make sure people are still practicing the challenges in their weekly activity by relating each challenge to the previous one. For example, in the week that we paid it forward, we could tie that to the post-it note challenge, since both of those are doing nice deeds for people. I know people don’t necessarily have to keep practicing these challenges in their daily lives, but it’s a nice way to make sure they are doing that.

When you tell your friends about the challenge, how do you describe it?

As I said before, I’m on social media a lot, so when I started posting about these challenges on Instagram, a lot of people have asked me about it. I tell them that it’s a fast and easy way to help themselves and others. The challenges help to improve themselves in some way, while making an impact on the charity that’s being supported for the month. All they have to do is to do the challenge that is set for the week for a dollar to be donated to charity. Then, post a photo and talk about their experiences with the challenge for another dollar to be donated to the same charity.